Hello 4-Day Families,This week finally began to feel like spring! The students started the week with an icy, snowy playground that has now transformed into a wonderland of mud, stones and newly discovered tools and toys. It was an exciting week in many ways and the students have begun to settle into the new season and the quickening pace of things that naturally occurs this time of year.

On Monday, although I was not at school, the students had a great morning building rocket ships with different geometric shapes, singing with Miss Katie and learning all about the word "atmosphere" and how having one or not having one makes a big difference to a planet. Monday was also "Mercury Day" and student learned about the closest planet to the sun and what it might be like to travel there. They were also introduced to our "Family of the Sun" song, which we will be adding to each day as we add planets to our bulletin board.

On Tuesday the students began their day together on the blue rug but were quickly dismissed to their free play activities. These activities included galaxy slime play, making sun catchers and playing in our Space Station. Students were also prompted to write about a place in the solar system that they would travel if they could fly their own space ship anywhere in the solar system! Some would choose to travel to Mars while others wanted to check out a nebula up close. We also added Venus to our solar system board and learned a new verse of our song.

On Wednesday the 4-Day Class celebrated the filling of our kindness jar with a very special day. Im not sure if the kids were more excited about wearing their PJ's or the fact that the classroom had been transformed into a darkened space! While using our flashlights we learned how to play space bingo, made some more plastic wrap planets and explored the slime some more. On Wednesday we added our planet, Earth, to our solar system and learned it's song verse. This verse talked about how to keep our Earth healthy by not adding pollution to our environment. This opened up a conversation about what pollution is, what adds pollution to our Earth and what pollution might do to our bodies. We then began the Bill Peet book, The Wump World in which invaders from another planet come to the Wump's world and pollute it so badly that they can't live there. This is a long book so we only read part of it on Wednesday.

Rounding out the week we had a big visit from the Hanover Fire Department. They came in and spoke to us about fire safety and what we would do in case of a fire at school. After a great and age appropriate discussion they pulled the fire alarm so that the students could hear it. The students also practiced lining up in a timely but safe fashion. They all did a wonderful job! We also read some more of the Wump World but didn't get a chance to finish it so we have place a "to be continued" on it until next Monday.